“Why in the name of Saint Murphy have I been called over to consult on an engineering problem here instead of back over to an engineering problem on the Clover where I belong, Brence?” Commander Spalding groused, stepping into the expanded shuttle bay and giving the structural support and hull repairs an eye as he did so.
“If you’ll just come this way, Sir, I’m sure you’ll understand what the problem is,” Lieutenant Brence said seriously.
Shaking his head, Spalding turned to Parkiney. “He’s got a look in his eye that you just can’t trust; I’ve seen it before,” he complained to the crew chief.
“How so, Commander?” asked the petty officer with a lifted brow.
“A man gets that kind of look and he’s liable to do any fool thing,” Spalding continued as if Parkiney hadn’t even spoken, “why, the last time I saw it a perfectly good engineer was looking at a suit of power armor of all things. I tell you, man: he was seduced to the dark side. If there’s one thing that’s nearly as bad for an engineer as relying on multi-tools, it’s got to be specializing in one field. It’s like an obsession that he just can’t shake. I’ve seen it before and it’s not a pretty sight!”
“An engineer with an obsession…you don’t say?” Parkiney deadpanned.
Spalding purpled. “It’s not the same thing and you know it!” the aged engineer grumped. “As the Saint is my beloved witness—”
Brence cleared his throat, “We’re here, Sir.”
Lips pursed in a furious scowl. the old engineer looked up and his jaw nearly fell open.
Lined up like sardines in a can were row after row of boats—gunboats, to be exact—and they weren’t just lined up along the floor and locked down tight like a person would normally expect to see inside a hangar. Instead, a second—and even a third , in some cases—row of gunboats were lined up fifteen to twenty feet in the air over the rows of boats. It was like that everywhere except for three rows right in the middle of the hangar that seemed to be used by heavy equipment to shuttle parts back and forth.
“What the blue blazes is going on in here?” Spalding swore, staring at the haphazard array of steel and duralloy framing mixed in with, in a few cases, chain-linked repulsors that kept everything from collapsing one a top the other. “This is a safety code violation if ever I saw one!!” he exclaimed, too shocked at the mess of gunboats, not one of which was perfectly lined up with the others. “Why, there’s even boats magnetized to the walls,” he said, spotting three boats that weren’t permanently attached to anything and looked like big, bloated insects attempting to hug a wall with unseen grippers.
“Yeah, we’ve been trying to get them to bring them down from there for a few days now,” said Parkiney.
“What a mess,” Spalding shook his head in disgust and then did a double take. “Are you saying that you’re a part of this…this…these shenanigans, Parkiney? For shame!”
“If you could step on over here, Sir,” said Brence, “we can discuss fixing up the mess later.”
“Yeah…it just sort of…grew,” Parkiney said lamely.
Spalding shook his head. “A man leaves a project alone for a few months and everything goes straight in the crapper,” he complained loudly. “You know it was me who put his reputation on the line with the Construction Manager, assuring her that this project would be a good way to let our people blow off steam!”
“Ah, here we are,” Brence said, starting to sound a little nervous as he made a blatant attempt to change the subject.
They rounded a corner. “I vouched for you!” the Commander bellowed, leveling a finger just as a grease-stained engineering rating rounded the corner.
The other man blinked, looking down at the finger and then back up at the commander. “Uh, thank you, Sir,” said the grease-stained engineer, “I’m sure I speak for everyone here when I say we’re all grateful.
Spalding glared at the rating, causing his eyes to widen and lean back as if enduring a strong wind.
“Ah, just the person I wanted you to meet,” Brence said, stepping up beside the other rating and putting an arm around his shoulder.
“Who’s in charge here?!” Spalding bellowed.
“Uh, hello, Commander. It’s a real treat to meet you. I’ve only been with the Patrol Fleet for less than a year now but I guess that’s all beside the point. Anyway, that would be me, Sir. I’m more or less in charge over here. I mean, as much as anyone,” the other engineer said with a smile.
“I vouched for you!” Spalding repeated histrionically. “And you make this sort of mess?!”
“Well it’s kind of hard with everyone only able to put in the work on their off-duty hours. No one’s really interested in making it pretty when they could be getting their hands dirty,” said the other man. “I mean, it’s hard to get them off the job and onto clean-up when there’s still more production work left to do.
Spalding opened his mouth, closed it, and then threw his hands in the air. “This is a hazardous environment! And it ends today,” he declared with the weight of authority.
“Of course, Sir,” the other man said happily. “They’ll listen to you where they’d probably just nod their heads and ignore me. You’re the Great Spalding, after all.”
Spalding stopped, caught flat-footed by this particular turn. “The ‘Great Spalding’?” he repeated, his eyebrows rising for the rafters before lowering thunderously. “What kind of utter nonsense is this? My grandfather was the ‘Great Spalding’ if,” he heavily stressed the last word, “there ever was one. I’m just a plain old working engineer, that’s what I am. I mean, what the heck are you trying to do here,” he demanded, “turn me into some kind of blasted Sai—”
“I’m glad you asked,” the other man said eagerly interrupting him, “you see, I’m working on one of those old Conformity boats. Let me tell you: they’re a lot bigger than the hover cars I used to work on back home. Fortunately I did my time in a shuttle repair yard before signing up with the Border Alliance and shipping out here,” he said eagerly while Spalding just nodded along, repressing the urge to shake his head at just how longwinded the younger generation seemed be getting nowadays. Why back in his day—“You see, I ripped out the thrusters and single engine setup the droids had going on and completely revamped the grav-plate set up. In fact, probably just about the only thing that’s stock on this thing is the power plant—other than the chassis, of course. But the plant just can’t get the job done as it is, so I’ve added an external energy bank to make up for that. However—”
Spalding, who had been nodding along up until this point, suddenly stiffened. “What are you doing?!” he cried, throwing an arm wide. “An external energy bank? What are you trying to do, get the crew of this ship killed?!”
“Killed? Why…why would that happen?” the other engineer asked, his brow furrowing.
“Why? Because it’d explode as soon as it took a hit, man—are ye daft? These boats don’t have shields, making those external energy banks nothing but a sitting time bomb,” sneered the old engineer, “which entirely ignores the fact that if by some miracle it didn’t explode, as soon as they were taken out you’d lose power to the entire ship!”
The younger engineer’s face cleared with sudden understanding. “Oh, you’re thinking about the old energy banks, sir. Yeah, those would’ve exploded if they took a hit, and they’d have taken the whole gunboat with them. That’s why we’re not using them. I’m pretty sure everybody here is using the new solid state semi-crystal energy cells they’re putting in the new sky speeders on Aurora,” the other man said with relief. “I mean we did have to find a different fluid base to replace the one they were using in the sky speeders, because the matrix they were using to suspend the crystals in froze up solid as soon as we took them outside the Carrier for a test run. But even though the new solution reduces the peak power outflow by ten percent, I think we’ve manage to overcome that hurdle by adding more banks.”
“What? A new energy bank,” Spalding said with su
rprise, and then he gave a loud huff to cover and quickly straightened out his features. “I want to see the specs.”
“Here, Sir,” said the other engineer, leading him around the gunboat and handing him a slate, “as you can see, it won’t explode and because they’re so small compared to the boats—I mean, they were intended for a speeder after all—we can put multiple banks of them on the hull and isolate each bank so a direct hit to any one unit won’t take out the entire system.”
“You’ll still need one heck of a surge protector just in case they’re hit,” the Chief Engineer grumbled as he flipped through the specs on the new battery system. “Ha! I see,” he said with sudden understanding, “it’s too small to be used on a capital ship and the power drop-off is too high compared to what we’re using now.” That explained why he’d never heard of them before.
“Yeah, I think we worked out the surge protection issue. But right now I’m having one heck of a time load-balancing the grav-plates and the energy systems. The previous computer system was obviously compromised, being of droid make. But since we don’t make anything but standard shuttle computers at Gambit, trying to make a shuttle computer work has been hard. I mean the programming from the Sundered is better than nothing, but the processing power is a little light. I’ve tried to compensate for that with a sub-node but the coding issues are just beyond me and the computer department is booked up solid,” the other man said helplessly.
Spalding gave him the hairy eyeball, but seeing the genuine concern on the younger man’s face his suspicion subsided even as his chest swelled. “What’s your name, lad?” he demanded, turning to take a long look at the gunboat before leaning his head in and peering inside.
“O’Toole, Sir. Petty Officer Justin O’Toole,” he said.
“Well don’t worry about that sub-node anymore. I’ve got a trick that’ll help you out with that. The real problem is your grav-plate setup,” he blustered.
“Thank you, that’s a real relief! But…the grav-plates?” the young engineer asked with a frown. “The matrix is set up to tolerance.”
“If you’re operating a shuttle I suppose it’s fine, but isn’t this supposed to be a gunboat?” Spalding shook his head and pulled out his own slate. “I’m not a gunboat specialist, but you’ll get at least a fifteen percent increase in speed if you place the plates in this formation. I mean, you will if your power plant can feed the extra power to your engine.”
“The power plant is kind of weak, like I told you, but if we add more energy banks outside we should be able to handle it for short distances. It’d be like an after burner mode if it works,” said the younger man, looking down at his slate before looking back up with a grin. “Hey, this sort of overlapping coverage should work great. I wonder why I never thought of it before?”
“You were using the standard array, which places extra emphasis on safety. They used this one for more than two hundred years before shifting over to the new model after too many law suits,” Spalding explained. “But if you look at the history of it, the only real reason they changed it was for liability purposes. I mean, sure, it gives you a little better energy consumption rate at the slower speeds but as far as safety there’s only a three percent increased risk of any sort of accident. Now in a civilian setting, three percent is huge. But when you’re in the middle of a battle and your life is measured in seconds rather than decades? I’d prefer the increase in speed every time, myself.”
“Hey, if you have time would you like to come in and take a look at my new power distribution system? I know it’s nothing fancy but I could sure use a second opinion,” said the engineer.
“Well…I really shouldn’t,” Spalding objected, knowing he really should be getting back to the Clover. But his eyes kept darting inside, “But I might could do—just for a couple hours, you understand?” he said finally and then hesitation gone stepped inside the gunboat. “Okay, show me what you’ve got. And while we’re at it, if you happen to have any malfunctioning grav-carts bring ‘em by and I’ll show you a little trick.”
“Thank you, Commander,” beamed the Engineer.
“And, you know, if you’ve been riding herd on the monkeys outside here and are thinking about riding this boat into battle we really should probably bump you up to a Warrant Officer,” said Spalding off-handedly.
Chapter Eighty-seven: The Boats Arrive
“Enemy fighter squadron is on hot approach,” reported the Sensor/Damage Control/Gunboat Tactical Assistant.
“We’re still going at standard maximum shuttle speed,” reported the pilot-slash-navigator.
“Keep it steady, Driver,” said Warrant Officer Justin O’Toole.
“That’s ‘Pilot,’ Warrant!” corrected the Pilot.
“Whatever, Danny,” O’Toole said with an eye-roll and then turned to the weapon’s operator. “Okay, I want you to line up our peashooter on those fighters and prepare to drop an anti-fighter missile as soon as they come in close, Weaponeer,” he instructed.
“If we let them get in close we’ll be at risk, Warrant,” the Sensor Operator said with all the disapproval his two week, entirely voluntary, gunboat tactics crash course allowed.
“Just one missile, Justin?” interrupted Svetlana the gunnery rating currently manning the gun boat’s weapon console. “Because you know I have two of the suckers and an anti-ship missile. And its ‘gunner’ or maybe ‘tactical’—not ‘weaponeer,’ Captain,” she protested.
“Says the overgrown grease monkey,” sniffed Harry from the sensor console. “I still say we should have held out for a gunner that, you know, had actual combat experience.”
“Hey, I got my rating,” Svetlana said hotly, “and if it’s combat experience you’re looking for, I operated a heavy laser for a full five minutes before a replacement crew came to replace gunner and assistant gunner after they were taken out by a grease fire!”
“Quick, call the press! Print a retraction! Sweet crying Murphy she’s got a whole five minutes, why that completely blows my lame-brained assertion that you’re green as a goose when it comes to combat in the hot-seat—” retorted Harry.
“Enough!” O’Toole said angrily. “Svetlana has all the experience both she and we need right now. And if we’re going to get all technical about it you spent most of your regular duty hours working as a cafeteria cook.”
“Just because I prefer cooking doesn’t mean I don’t want to rack up some combat kills! I’m a fully trained sensor operator,” protested Harry, “I just prefer feeding you chowder-heads and having access to the best food stocks on the ship. I rode second console in the Small Craft Grand Prix before joining the MSP—at least I know boats!”
“Likely story,” Svetlana sneered.
“Blast it you guys, here they come!” shouted the pilot.
“Drop missile and fire!” cried O’Toole, the nominal master and commander of the gunboat.
“Yee-haw!” cried Danny as he threw the gunboat into an evasive maneuver that strained the grav-plate system to its limits.
“Slow down, you moron—I can’t hit anything when you’re throwing us around like this!” cried Svetlana as the targeting computer in her console struggled to keep up.
“You had a good two seconds. If you two weren’t so busy arguing right before going into a combat situation, you’d have had plenty of time,” shouted Danny at the helm.
“I told you she was green! You should have compensated for that, you hotdog,” Harry snapped back, “line it back up! Quick!”
“I thought I was the captain,” said O’Toole with an edge in his voice.
“Missile away!” cried Svetlana as the missile separated from the gunboat and went into sprint mode, aimed at one of the approaching fighters.
“You’re supposed to be coordinating the whole wing,” Harry informed him, “so get busy coordinating already. We’ll handle everything in here.”
“That’d be like turning command over to the three stooges,” snapped Justin O’Toole, “no way!”
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“Scratch one bogey!” cried Svetlana, pumping her fist as the missile shot past her target and slammed into an enemy fighter that was part of a second squadron which had been coming up behind the first.
“Yeah, but it’s not one of the ones we wanted. Work on your targeting, girl,” ordered Harry, his voice laced with irritation.
“I just shot down a fighter and you’re still complaining? Of course we wanted it—this is ridiculous! You’re just mad because I turned you down and punched you in the face for being a prick at the bar,” growled Svetlana.
“Like I told you at the time: I thought you were a tranny. I lost a bet with the boys and so I had to—” Harry defended himself.
“Argh!” Svetlana cried angrily.
“Killjoys Wing: focus your fire on the enemy fighters. Killer Coconuts: continue on to those Destroyers behind them!” ordered O’Toole, cutting through the noise.
On the tiny screens built into their consoles, the gunboat crew could see a squadron of fighters coming at them head on. Then the fighters opened fire.
“I’ll kill you!” shouted Svetlana, opening fire with the peashooter.
The gunboat shuddered. “We’re hit! We’re hit!” cried the Sensor/Damage Control Operator, “the power bank on the left side has been compromised and I’m reading a micro-fracture in the hull.”
“Hold your mustard, cook,” Svetlana mocked gloatingly, “this is nothing compared to what we have to deal with on the deck.”
“Stay on target and launch the other anti-fighter missile!” ordered O’Toole as the fighters overtook them and another shot slammed home against the boat’s hull, causing alarm klaxons to sound in the gunboat cockpit.
“I’ve got a yellow light! There’s a problem of some kind with the capital missile launch mechanism,” yelped the Sensor Operator.
“This is going to be tight!” screamed Pilot Danny as a second enemy fighter squadron appeared on their flank, diverting course to put them in a pincher move.
“Free hoagies on rye for everyone in the boat if you get us all out of here alive!” exclaimed Harry.
Admiral's War Part Two (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 10) Page 32
